killing time.  By his dilatory tactics, I knew the young rascal was delaying in the hope of getting a word with the Dona Anita.  But it was getting late, and at the rate we were hoisting darkness would overtake us before we could reach the herd.  So I ordered Enrique to the bucket, while I took my own horse and furnished the hoisting power.  We were making some headway with the work, when a party of women, among them the Dona Anita, came down to the well to fill vessels for house use.

This may have been all chance—­and then again it may not.  But the gallant Enrique now outdid himself, filling jar after jar and lifting them to the shoulder of the bearer with the utmost zeal and amid a profusion of compliments.  I was annoyed at the interruption in our work, but I could see that Enrique was now in the highest heaven of delight.  The Dona Anita’s mother was present, and made it her duty to notice that only commonplace formalities passed between her daughter and the ardent vaquero.  After the jars were all filled, the bevy of women started on their return; but Dona Anita managed to drop a few feet to the rear of the procession, and, looking back, quietly took up one corner of her mantilla, and with a little movement, apparently all innocence, flashed a message back to the entranced Enrique.  I was aware of the flirtation, but before I had made more of it Enrique sprang down from the abutment of the well, dragged me from my horse, and in an ecstasy of joy, crouching behind the abutments, cried:  Had I seen the sign?  Had I not noticed her token?  Was my brain then so befuddled?  Did I not understand the ways of the senoritas among his people?—­that they always answered by a wave of the handkerchief, or the mantilla?  Ave Maria, Tomas!  Such stupidity!  Why, to be sure, they could talk all day with their eyes.

[Illustration:  FLASHED A MESSAGE BACK]

A setting sun finally ended his confidences, and the watering was soon finished, for Enrique lowered the bucket in a gallop.  On our reaching the herd and while we were catching our night horses, Uncle Lance strode out to the rope corral, with the inquiry, what had delayed us.  “Nothing particular,” I replied, and looked at Enrique, who shrugged his shoulders and repeated my answer.  “Now, look here, you young liars,” said the old ranchero; “the wagon has been in camp over an hour, and, admitting it did start before you, you had plenty of time to water the saddle stock and overtake it before it could possibly reach the herd.  I can tell a lie myself, but a good one always has some plausibility.  You rascals were up to some mischief, I’ll warrant.”